Living with Wes isn’t going to be easy.

Of course, there are levels to everything. On one level, I have a handle on the rent for the next two months. A man like Wes is far too picky to decide on a place in four weeks—I can feel it in my bones.

Rent’s simple. The hard part? I’m stone-cold sober, except for a half-glass of wine, and I still think he’s three-mimosas hot. Hotter, even. I opened a bottle of moscato at six when he still hadn’t shown up, but I’m too much of a lady to welcome a new boarder full-bottle tipsy. Especially given the three-mimosas attractiveness radiating off his cut body.

Wes clearly isn’t into small talk, so I allow myself one last glance down his business-professional-clad body. The clothes do nothing to hide the muscled breadth of his shoulders, and since I’ve seen him shirtless semi-recently, I don’t have to leave his abs to my imagination.

He looked unbelievable in a tux. He looks almost as good wearing dress slacks and a button-up that somehow manages to bring out the color of his eyes.

“The room?” he prompts again, a hint of impatience in his eyes.

“Right. Of course. I’ll give you the grand tour.” The apartment I formerly shared with Summer isn’t huge, but I’ve spent the last seventy-two hours making sure it’s spotless. “In here is the living room.” One couch, one overstuffed chair. Blanket thrown over the back of the couch. It looks effortless, but I spent five minutes on the arrangement. “And through here is the kitchen.”

I thought about baking cookies, but he’s already agreed to stay here. I’m not a fucking realtor, anyway.

“Okay.” His voice is low and even. He has the kind of voice that makes me wish he’d say more, but he’s apparently feeling quiet this evening.

I lead him down the hall to the bedrooms. “On the right is the bathroom. I keep towels and things in the linen closet in there, and I got a second set for you, in case you were moving in without any.”

He stops outside the bathroom door and amusement brightens his green eyes. “You thought I went to Road House, and now you think I don’t own towels?”

I lift my chin. “A courtesy, Wes Sullivan, to make your moving-in experience a little easier.”

One side of his mouth quirks upward in a grin that reminds me of Summer, though I can’t ever remember her being anything more than mildly sarcastic if she’d had a hard day at work. I have no idea what Wes is going to say. Something snide and asshole-ish, as is his way. “Thank you.”

I wasn’t expecting that, but I roll with it without even blinking. “You’re welcome.” I step to the end of the hall, where two doorways face each other. “I have the room on the right. This one’s yours.”

He looks at me, stone-faced. “I don’t think so. I always take the room on the right.”

What? This time, I do blink, lost for a witty comeback. “You might always have—” No, that’s stupid. Now I’ve started something I can’t follow through on, and there he is, staring at me while the heat rises to my cheeks. Act, Whitney. Act. For God’s sake. This isn’t any worse than the improv class I took two summers ago. “If you think—”

Wes laughs, relenting. “I’m kidding.” His face relaxes and for an instant I think I’m seeing him unguarded, the way Summer must have when they were growing up together. “It’s more than a little weird to be living in your sister’s old room.”

“What, your parents never—” Never what? Moved? Died? Caused such upheaval that you were lucky to keep your bedroom another nine months after—

“They never made us switch, if that’s what you’re asking.” Wes pulls the suitcases down the hall and peers into the room. “I moved into the basement when I graduated high school. That lasted about three weeks.”

We look into Summer’s old room together. She left her queen-sized bed here, the mattress wrapped in an airtight protector because she lived in perpetual fear of bedbugs, but I bought a new set of sheets and a comforter to go with them. My instinct with bedding is always to get the fanciest available, but my budget prevailed. Plus, it’s Wes Sullivan, not the King of England. Still, the sheets are soft enough and the comforter is a middleweight one that won’t be too hot in the summer.

Not that he’ll be here in the summer.

“Summer liked being on this side,” I offer. “She likes the sun on her face in the morning. Hence the wide-open curtains.”

Wes rolls his eyes. “The sun on her face, and yet she spent her entire childhood insisting that winter is better.”

“When you’re a kid, the best season is the one you’re in. You haven’t learned to feel the cold yet.”

“Yeah.”

This is veering into actual-conversation territory, and I have to say, I don’t hate it.

“All right.” Wes picks up the suitcases and carries them into the bedroom, setting them down with a confident thud. From here, he looks too big for the room, even though I know it’s a fine size room for New York. God. Why do I want to push the walls outward around him, just to give him an extra few feet? It’s a stupid instinct. Wes Sullivan is a man, like any other man. He doesn’t get more space because he’s hot and happens to have a killer body, all hard and muscled and— “Did you need something?”

“Hmm?” I’ve been staring at him. “Oh. No. Did you need something?”

He looks at me. “Some time to unpack.”

That’s a Get the hell out if I’ve ever heard one, but Whitney the Almost-Famous Actress takes it in stride. I smile at him, like I’m relieved to be getting away. “I’ll be in the living room if you want any company.”

“Good to know.”

I pour myself a second glass of wine in the kitchen and settle into the couch. There’s the muffled sound of dresser drawers being opened—Summer and I found them at a thrift shop and restored them one weekend, which was an entire thing. I’m two glasses in when he appears at the end of the hallway.

I ignore him studiously, but I can feel his eyes burning into my skin.

Wes moves into the living room.

I hold my breath and stare at the Netflix original I have playing at a low volume. Is he going to sit down next to me? Is he—

He goes past the couch to the windows.

What the hell?

Wes stands close to the frames and tests them both, then cuts back across the living room to the front door. I don’t turn my head, but the sound of him yanking on the knob is unmistakable.

Okay. He wins. I stand up, wine glass in hand, and face him.

“What are you doing?”

“The security in this place is a joke. You’re waiting to be robbed.”

I shake my head slowly. “I choose to believe people are better than that. Not everybody who walks by my front door is a bad person.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “They’re not all good, either. You can’t just go through your life assuming everyone’s going to be nice to you.”

I scoff at him. “I would never assume that.” I sit back down on the couch. “I met you, didn’t I?”